2019-2020 Department of Industrial Engineering - A Year In Review

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

Year in Review

2019-2020

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From the Department Head Featured Research Endeavors Faculty Achievements & Service Current Grants Publications Undergraduate Overview Graduate Overview New Master of Science in Operations Analytics MSOM and MSEM Overview I.E. By The Numbers Alumni Highlights Liaison Committee Laboratories Overview Our Faculty Ways To Partner With Us

Producing Leaders That Will Solve Tomorrow’s Engineering Challenges

Contact Information Department of Industrial Engineering 4207 Bell Engineering Center • University of Arkansas • Fayetteville, AR 72701 Phone: (479) 575-3156 • Fax: (479) 575-8431

Faculty Carrie Beam ....................................................................cmbeam@uark.edu................................................................ (925) 285-1977 C. Richard Cassady......................................................... cassady@uark.edu................................................................ (479) 575-6735 W. Art Chaovalitwongse .................................................. artchao@uark.edu ................................................................ (479) 575-5857 Justin R. Chimka ............................................................. jchimka@uark.edu ................................................................ (479) 575-7392 Burak Eksioglu.................................................................. burak@uark.edu..................................................................(479) 575-2328 Sandra Eksioglu ............................................................... sandra@uark.edu.................................................................(479) 575-6042 John R. English.....................................................................jre@uark.edu ....................................................................(479) 575-3054 Carol S. Gattis ..................................................................... csg@uark.edu.................................................................... (479) 575-3156 Haitao Liao..........................................................................liao@uark.edu.................................................................... (479) 575-6196 Xiao Liu...............................................................................xl027@uark.edu ..................................................................(479) 575-6033 Ashlea Bennett Milburn ................................................... ashlea@uark.edu ................................................................. (479) 575-3702 Heather Nachtmann............................................................ hln@uark.edu.................................................................... (479) 575-5857 Kim LaScola Needy .......................................................... kneedy@uark.edu................................................................. (479) 575-7762 Sarah Nurre...................................................................... snurre@uark.edu .................................................................(479) 575-3940 Greg S. Parnell ................................................................ gparnell@uark.edu................................................................ (479) 575-7423 Harry A. Pierson..............................................................hapierso@uark.edu ...............................................................(479) 575-6034 Edward A. Pohl.................................................................. epohl@uark.edu ..................................................................(479) 575-6029 Letitia (Tish) Pohl ..............................................................lpohl@uark.edu ..................................................................(479) 575-4208 Chase Rainwater................................................................. cer@uark.edu.................................................................... (479) 575-2687 Manuel D. Rossetti ...........................................................rossetti@uark.edu ................................................................ (479) 575-6756 Kelly Sullivan.....................................................................ksulliv@uark.edu .................................................................(479) 575-2563 John A. White....................................................................jawhite@uark.edu................................................................. (479) 575-3156 Shengfan Zhang ............................................................. shengfan@uark.edu ............................................................... (479) 575-3571

industrial-engineering.uark.edu

FROM THE DEPARTMENT HEAD

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he 2019-2020 academic year was filled with new challenges among the COVID-19 pandemic, but I am extremely impressed with how well our faculty, staff, and students adapted to a new normal. My sincere hope is that you and your families are staying safe and healthy.

We went fully remote after Spring Break, but our faculty and staff continued to provide the same high level of education via remote platforms. We are still connecting with our students individually, providing a variety of modes of delivery, and working diligently to ensure they have the best educational experience possible. So much of what we knew as normal in the department changed, but if anyone is good at change management, adapting to new technology, and being leaders for others across the college and across campus, it is Industrial Engineers!

In the midst of the new challenges, we received the good news that U.S. News and World Report ranked our Department 25th overall for graduate programs in Industrial/Systems/ Manufacturing and 17th among public institutions. This is a jump of 11 and 12 spots, respectively. I am extremely pleased with the progress we are making!

As you will see throughout this annual review, we are making great strides with regard to research and education. Our Industrial Engineering program is home to just over 220 undergraduates, 75 graduate students, and more than 750 students combined between our Operations Management program, Engineering Management program and Graduate Certificates in Project Management, Lean Six Sigma, and Homeland Security. Just before campus moved to remote platforms, the college’s Decision Day was held and we welcomed 62 freshmen into the IE family! We are excited to help mold them into great industrial engineers!

Our research endeavors continue to expand as a research team, led by Heather Nachtmann, was recently awarded a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration, Xiao Liu was awarded $238,000 through the National Science Foundation’s EPSCoR program for a research partnership with IBM, and several of our faculty are heavily involved with the recently awarded $20 million grant to the Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s Division of Science and Technology on Data Analytics That Are Robust and Trusted, in partnership with the University of Arkansas and eight other colleges and universities.

2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

You will learn about many of our outstanding students and their achievements in this report. It goes without saying that I am always so impressed by and proud of the students we see in this department.

For example, Lexxy Gentile had an incredible year; she earned the 2019-20 Robert and Jean Dryden Service Scholarship from the Alpha Pi Mu Honor Society, she was chosen as a Senior of Significance from the Arkansas Alumni Association, and she was selected as both the Industrial Engineering Outstanding Senior and as the recipient of the Department’s 2019 Undergraduate Research Award.

Karlton Haney also had a fantastic year; he received the John L. Imhoff Globalization Scholarship from the Alpha Pi Mu Honor Society, he was also chosen as a Senior of Significance from the Arkansas Alumni Association, and he was one of two IE students to graduate with a perfect 4.0 GPA! I could go on and on about the amazing achievements of our students, so I hope you will continue reading this report to learn more.

There is no doubt that we will continue to move forward and adapt even more as COVID-19 remains a challenge for us all.

We’re looking toward the fall semester with open minds and a determined attitude.

I hope you enjoy this report. Please reach out with questions or input. I hope to see you soon, even if virtually or from six feet apart. Please take care of yourself.

All my best,

Edward A. Pohl, Ph.D. Department Head and 21st Century Professor of Industrial Engineering

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FEATURED RESEARCH ENDEAVORS Harnessing the Convergence of Engineering Domain Knowledge and Data Sciences

Xiao Liu

Assistant Professor

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he digitization of physical space has led to an explosion of spatio-temporal data arising from complex physical processes (temperature fields in modern Data Centers, extreme environmental processes, deformation on aircraft surfaces after UAV/bird collisions, etc.). In line with the NSF’s 10 Big Ideas (Growing Convergence Research & Harnessing the Data Revolution), Dr. Xiao Liu’s research objective is to create a physics-informed statistical learning, monitoring, and dynamic sampling framework for a large class of spatio-temporal processes governed by unequivocal physical principles.

For high-stakes engineering applications, a tension is escalating between the need for increased complexity in data-driven models and the need for domain experts to interpret the models, and derive actionable insights. The unprecedented advances of data sciences over the past decade have brought us to a critical juncture where the continuing penetration (of data sciences) into the traditional fields of

engineering–in the next 10 years–hinges on harnessing the convergence of domain knowledge into statistical learning.

For example, the spatial-temporal deformation process on aircraft surface due to collisions with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)–a complex process on curved manufactured surfaces governed by the conservation laws (energy, mass, and momentum). In the figure below, surface deformation areas are initially scattered on the surface hit by UAV debris. Then, elastic deformation quickly disappears, and at the final stage, a new deformation area is formed near the initial impact center because the surface wave propagates back after hitting the boundary of the wind shield. It is almost impossible to capture such complex spatio-temporal dynamics with interpretable outputs using pure data-driven approaches without considering the underlying governing physics.

As the need to regularize UAV grows, aviation safety requires federal agencies (e.g., FAA) to assess the aircraft surface damage

Aircraft surface deformation after UAVs collisions (Finite Element Analysis)

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due to UAV collisions under various impact conditions (angle, altitude, speed, location, weight, etc.). Since statistically-rigorous uncertainty quantification and a complete exploration under various conditions are infeasible using numerical simulations, interpretable physics-informed statistical surrogate models become indispensable in shortening the policy-making cycle.

(This is the on-going work of Mr. Xinchao Liu, who joined the Ph. D program Fall 2019.)

Dr. Liu’s group is currently pursuing an accurate, interpretable, and defensible SEP (structure-exploiting-preserving) hierarchical framework which enables domain-aware modeling, monitoring, data-driven discovery of physics, and dynamic optimal sampling for a large class of physical spatio-temporal processes arising from interdisciplinary engineering applications. This research will fundamentally transform how spatio-temporal processes– governed by unequivocal physics–are modeled for a spectrum

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FULL-TIME FACULTY

of high-stakes engineering applications. The novelty lies in: while conventional spatio-temporal models still largely follow the classical statistical modeling paradigm (i.e., “specify the mean-value function and covariance  collect data  inference and validation”), the proposed approach starts with exploiting the structure of the governing physics which leads to a unique approach that intrusively integrates data-driven models into the solution manifold of physical equations (i.e., structure-exploitingpreserving).

Preliminary research outcome is reported in a paper titled: “Statistical Modeling for Spatio-Temporal Data from Stochastic Convection-Diffusion Processes”. The paper is a joint work between Dr. Xiao Liu and his collaborators from IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. The manuscript is currently under revision with a premier journal of statistical science, and is available on arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10375.

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%

of both graduate and undergraduate students identify as female

SUPPORT STAFF

2.8M $ research expenditures FY 2019

2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

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undergraduate students AY 2019-2020

AY 2019-2020

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graduate students AY 2019-2020

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TransMAP Hub: Developing a ‘Visual Decision Space’ for Multimodal Transportation Systems

Heather Nachtmann Professor

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fficient, resilient, and sustainable multimodal transportation is a national priority. To meet the challenging environment of the Nation’s complex and ever-changing transportation system, large-scale data sets need to be captured and analyzed to support research and planning, and made available for real-time access for use by government agencies, industry, and citizens. Intelligently using big data is critical to manage, improve, maintain, design, and build our transportation infrastructure.

Heather Nachtmann currently leads the Transportation and Maritime Analytics Partnerships (TransMAP) Hub project, which is working to make available large-scale data and visualization tools related to maritime freight transportation on infrastructure, systems, and networks accessible to humans and machines through the Internet of things, in order to enable improved resilience, planning, investment, and operational decisions.

The TransMAP Hub is a three-year project supported by the Maritime Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

TransMAP Hub’s primary goal is to develop a ‘visual decision space’ for effective planning, management, and advancement of efficient, resilient, and sustainable multimodal transportation systems including highway, rail, maritime, and pipeline.

In addition to Nachtmann, the TransMAP Hub team includes Justin Chimka and Chase Rainwater from the Department of Industrial Engineering, Jack Cothren from the Center of Advanced Spatial Technologies at the University of Arkansas, and Jim Kruse of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. The team is currently working to: • Curate, archive, and disseminate transactional and dynamic data across multiple software platforms to make a variety of transportation data sets accessible on a real-time basis

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to government agencies, industry, and citizens based on open source data management software tools and an openaccess online visualization platform to collect, analyze, and disseminate transportation system performance data that supports efficient and accessible multimodal transportation.

• Improve visualization of physical and socioeconomic data related to multimodal transportation in three-dimensional space, and over time, through the development of cartograms for visualizing human geography, area-value data, and time as a cartographic variable.

• Develop interactive map animations so researchers, citizens, and current and future industries can access data-rich maps to make informed decisions for effective planning, management, and advancement of efficient, resilient, and sustainable multimodal transportation systems including highway, rail, maritime, and pipeline.

The TransMAP Hub project is being conducted through the Maritime Transportation Research and Education Center (MarTREC) with Nachtmann as director. MarTREC, is a U.S. Department of Transportation Tier 1 University Transportation Center funded through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology.

MarTREC is working to preserve the Nation’s transportation system through efficient, resilient, and sustainable maritime and multimodal logistics and infrastructure.

The MarTREC consortium consists of the University of Arkansas, Jackson State University (JSU), Louisiana State University, Texas A&M University and Transportation Institute, University of New Orleans, and Vanderbilt University. Additional information about MarTREC can be found at: martrec.uark.edu.

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Collaborative Robots for Advanced Manufacturing

Harry Pierson

Associate Professor

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he first industrial robot was installed on a General Motors plant in 1961 to tend a die casting machine, relieving humans from a dangerous, dirty, uncomfortable, and dull task.

As we approach the 50th anniversary of this groundbreaking advance, industrial robots have become faster, cheaper, and easier to program, yet only about 10% of industrial tasks have been automated. The reason is that industrial robots are still relatively simple devices – they can be programmed to move through a sequence of motions, but those motions must be defined by human task experts at design time. They fail in the face of unexpected events and variability that the engineers and programmers did not anticipate, and are thus limited to highly structured, repetitive tasks.

Associate Professor Harry Pierson’s research in collaborative robotics is a new approach to industrial robotics where humans and robots interact in real time to complete complex tasks in unstructured environments.

remanufacturing operations. Military vehicle components exhibit high variability – they come to the depot with differing paint jobs, geometries, wear, battle damage, and so forth, making each part effectively unique.

The research group has developed a collaborative path planning paradigm, where sensors feed the geometry of a novel part to algorithms that attempt to determine the best robotic path plan for the task. This plan and its predicted results are then presented to a human operator who can incorporate their insight and intelligence in the planning process by providing feedback to the planning algorithms.

Military vehicle manufacturing is an extreme case of high-mix, low-volume manufacturing.

Manual pressure washing vehicle parts is dull, dirty, dangerous, and uncomfortable work.

One representative application Pierson’s research group has been working on is spraying operations in military depot 2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

Thus far, Master’s student Steven Brown has developed algorithms to intelligently plan sprayer path plans for arbitrarily complex geometries, and Master’s student Braden James has developed simulation models that allow a human operator to visualize the cleaning and coating removal effects of a high pressure waterjet spray on complex parts. These technologies form the backbone of the human-robot iterative planning process for a pressure washing application, but can be extended to other spraying processes such as sand blasting, painting/coating, and shot peening.

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Optimally Maintaining a Wireless Sensor Network

Kelly Sullivan

Associate Professor

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ireless sensor networks (WSNs) are used to collect and process data over space and time for a variety of purposes. WSNs are commonly used in the sciences to study natural phenomena, such as ecosystems and geological processes, and they are increasingly used to monitor both natural and adversarial threats, such as forest fires and biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons. All of these applications tend to require coverage of a substantial area over a prolonged period of time. This is a challenge because individual sensors are prone to failure, causing the WSN’s coverage to decrease. The WSN’s coverage can be improved by deploying new sensor nodes and/ or maintaining existing sensor nodes, but these actions may be costly. Associate Professor Kelly Sullivan’s research aims to determine how to design and maintain a WSN in order to ensure reliable coverage over time at an affordable cost.

As an illustration, consider a simplified scenario (depicted in the figure) in which a given number of sensor nodes are initially deployed randomly within a region and nodes are periodically redeployed by replacing all failed nodes with new sensor nodes deployed randomly into the region. In such a time-based node redeployment policy, it is of interest to determine how many sensor nodes should be deployed and how frequently nodes should be redeployed, considering both cost and reliability

objectives. This problem can be cast as bi-objective optimization problem, but there are substantial challenges in evaluating the cost and reliability objectives. These challenges increase under a more broadly applicable set of assumptions or with more sophisticated maintenance policies such as allowing new sensors’ locations to be specified, existing sensors to be repositioned, or maintenance actions to be triggered based upon network conditions and not under a recurring maintenance schedule.

Working with Ph.D. students Nicholas Boardman and Daniel Lopes da Silva, Sullivan’s goal is to create methodology to enable solving these types of problems.

Sullivan and Boardman have developed a number of results for the time-based node redeployment problem, including efficient procedures to estimate the cost and reliability objectives in a way that disaggregates complexity arising from the “number of sensors” and “redeployment frequency” variables. Using these results, Sullivan and Boardman have prescribed an approach for solving the cost/reliability optimization problem and demonstrated insights applicable to the task of planning large-scale and prolonged-life WSNs. Sullivan, Boardman, and Lopes da Silva are currently working to extend these results to more sophisticated maintenance policies and a broader class of WSNs.

Notional wireless sensor network (a) at initial deployment, (b) immediately before redeployment, and (c) after nodes are redeployed.

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FACULTY ACHIEVEMENTS & SERVICE

• Heather Nachtmann, professor and director of MarTREC, received the Bernard Sarchet Award from the American Society for Engineering Management.

The Sarchet Award is the highest award given by the Society.

It recognizes a lifetime of achievement in the engineering management field and is named after one of the founding fathers of the academic discipline of engineering management. It annually recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions over an extended period to the discipline and the Society and who exemplifies the highest standards of professionals in engineering management.

The award was presented at the Society’s Annual Conference in Philadelphia in October 2019.

Nachtmann was also selected as a Chancellor’s Academic Fellow. The Chancellor’s Academic Fellows program is an effective mechanism to involve the faculty and the campus at large, in making strategic decisions that will have long-term benefits for the University of Arkansas.

• Associate professor, Kelly Sullivan, earned the College of Engineering - Rising Teaching Award. Sullivan effectively and innovatively delivers a variety of industrial engineering courses, is a leader in the development and implementation of the Industrial Engineering Honors Research Experience, and is an outstanding mentor of graduate and undergraduate students.

From the time he was an undergraduate in the Department, Sullivan has consistently demonstrated an appreciation of academic rigor and compassion for others. He has high expectations of his students, but he has high expectations of himself for doing what he needs to do to help the students meet those expectations. Sullivan successfully delivers rigorous sections of required undergraduate courses without inflating grades.

2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

He is a leader in the development and implementation of the Department’s three-course, three-year Honors Research Experience that has created a structured path for honors students to maintain steady progress toward completion of the honors thesis. In both undergraduate and graduate courses, he has developed novel approaches to facilitate students’ abilities to meet desired outcomes. Sullivan’s teaching has been recognized by the industrial engineering student body and the Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineering.

• Faculty members Ed Pohl and Haitao Liao, along with doctoral student, Cesar Ruiz were recognized at the 2019 International Conference on Mathematical Modeling in Reliability. The conference, held June 3-7, 2019 in Hong Kong, brought together leading international experts from the fields of mathematical theory, reliability and risk management.

The U of A faculty and student, along with Fuqiang Sun of Beihang University, received a Best Paper Award for their paper, “Reliability Estimation from Multiple Degradation Processes with Dependent Random Effects.” The paper proposed a new mathematical model for analyzing data widely seen in the areas of microelectronics and advanced manufacturing.

• Assistant professor, Xiao Liu, has received a $238,000 award through the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). Liu will partner with the Industrial and Applied Genomics team at IBM’s Almaden Research Center in

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San Jose, California. The collaboration will harness big data aimed at improving how intelligent food-borne outbreaks investigations are handled.

• Professor, Sandra Eksioglu received the Best Paper Award; in the 2019 IISE Transactions Focus Issue on Scheduling and Logistics, for her paper “Heuristic Algorithms for the Inventory Replenishment Problem with Perishable Products and Multiple Transportation Modes.”

She also received an 2019 Honorable Mention from INFORMS Energy, Natural Resources, and the Environment (ENRE) for her paper “Analyzing Tax Incentives for Producing Renewable Energy by Biomass Cofiring,” published in Transactions Focus Issue on Scheduling and Logistics.

• Professor, Haitao Liao received the Outstanding Faculty Member Award from the Associated Student Government and the Graduate Professional Student Congress. Both graduate and undergraduate students were invited to nominate faculty members from around campus to be considered for this award. The graduate student nominations were reviewed the Graduate Professional Student Congress, while the Associated Student Government reviewed all nominations from undergraduate students.

• Associate Professor, Ashlea Milburn, was inducted in the Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineering in April of 2019. The Academy was founded in 1986 to recognize the achievements of University of Arkansas Industrial Engineering graduates and to provide continuing guidance and support to the Department of Industrial Engineering.

The Academy also provides its members with the opportunity to nurture the organization that played an important role in their professional growth and development. Academy members provide tremendous financial resources that endow many scholarships for the Industrial Engineering students.

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• Letitia “Tish” Pohl, teaching associate professor, was the recipient of the Industrial Engineering Division Distinguished Service Award from the American Society for Engineering Education. The award recognizes exemplary service to the Industrial Engineering Division and is presented to a member who has provided significant service to the division. Pohl is the undergraduate advisor for the Industrial Engineering Department. In this role, she advises over 200 students on a regular basis each semester, in addition to teaching five courses throughout the academic year.

• Shengfan Zhang, assistant professor, and her team including: Amir Mian, assistant professor of pediatrics at UAMS; and Lu Zhang, assistant professor of computer science and computer engineering, has received funding from the Chancellor’s Fund.

Since its establishment in 2016, the Chancellor’s Fund has invested up to $1 million annually in seed funding. Faculty pursuing interdisciplinary studies in the university’s signature research areas are encouraged to apply for the Collaboration and Innovation Fund. The three signature areas identified by the U of A are Advancing the Data Revolution, Improving Human Health and Community Vibrancy, and Innovating a Resilient and Sustainable Future.

Zhang and her team will explore ways to improve outcomes of hospitalized pediatric patients using artificial intelligence technologies.

Faculty Promotions • Manuel Rossetti has been promoted to University Professor.

Rossetti will assume the role of Director of the University of Arkansas’ new interdisciplinary Bachelor of Science in Data Science undergraduate degree program. The new Data Science program is a collaboration between the Walton College of Business, the Fulbright College INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

of Arts and Sciences, and the College of Engineering.

Data science combines the fields of computer science, mathematics, statistics, and information systems with a focus on the generation, organization, modeling, and use of data to make scientific and business decisions.

Rossetti has been with the Department of Industrial Engineering since 1999. He is highly recognized for his work with the field of computer simulation modeling and analysis and is the author of the internationally used textbook, Simulation Modeling and Arena published by John Wiley & Sons. He is a Fellow within the Institute for Industrial and Systems Engineering. In 2013, he was recognized with the Charles and Nadine Baum Teaching Award, the highest teaching honor for the University of Arkansas.

• Harry Pierson has been

promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Pierson has over 20 years of combined industry and academic experience in manufacturing and has served with the Department of Industrial Engineering since 2014. His research is guided by the desire to push capability boundaries in high-mix, lowvolume manufacturing environments such as those found in the aerospace and defense industries. Key research thrusts include collaborative robotics and additive manufacturing (popularly known as 3D printing). In collaborative robotics, he and his students have developed methods that allow humans and robots to work together to solve complex toolpath planning problems for one-off production of unique, highvalue components. In additive manufacturing, his research has included development of materials and methods for direct write printing of polymer composites, as well as multiagent 3D printing, where multiple printers work cooperatively on a single work piece to speed production. His research has been funded by the Army Research Office, Air Force Research Lab, Army Material Command, and Walmart, and he has received three prestigious summer research fellowships from the Air Force.

Pierson teaches the Department’s required Manufacturing Processes course and technical electives in robotics, automation, and control. His courses are known for their use of active teaching methods such as flipping and experiential learning. Dr. Pierson is a member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the Institute of Industrial Engineers, where he serves on the board of directors for the Manufacturing and Design Division.

2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

• Carrie Beam has been promoted to Teaching Associate Professor.

She holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and has taught Introduction to Operations Management, Introduction to Decision Support Systems, Introduction to Analytics, Probability and Statistics, Lean Six Sigma, Maintenance and Reliability, Risk Management, and a variety of other operations management topics since she began with the M.S.O.M. program in 2012. She has been teaching online since 2007. She also works as a consultant, specializing in data science and analytics. Projects include descriptive and predictive analytics, and help inform such decisions as market segmentation, direct marketing strategy, customer churn analysis, and coupon/pricing analysis.

• Letitia (Tish) Pohl was recently promoted to Teaching Associate Professor. She has worked in the Department of Industrial Engineering since 2012. Tish serves as the undergraduate advisor for all industrial engineering students and teaches five classes each year, including Engineering Economic Analysis, Work Methods and Ergonomics, and Facility Logistics. Her research interests are in facility design and engineering education. Tish is a fellow of the University of Arkansas Teaching Academy, a two-time finalist for the Dr. John and Mrs. Lois Imhoff Award for Outstanding Teaching and Student Mentorship, and a recipient of several teaching and advising awards, including the Engineering Economy Teaching Award from the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering in 2019, and the Outstanding Advising Certificate of Merit from the National Academic Advising Association in 2016.

College of Engineering Faculty Awards • The College of Engineering held their annual spring meeting in May 2020 and recognized faculty and staff members for their contributions to the success of the college. They were unable to meet in person due to the Coronavirus emergency and the event was held virtually.

Faculty and staff members from the industrial engineering department recognized included:

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Teaching: Kelly Sullivan, associate professor; Research: Haitao Liao, professor, John and Mary Lib White Endowed Systems Integration Chair; Service to Students: Tish Pohl, teaching associate professor; Staff Excellence: Matt Sparks, master scientific research technician.

Faculty Professional Service Carrie Beam INFORMS Franz Edelman Award: Competition Coach, 2019 INFORMS, Cluster Chair of Section on Practice, Chair, 2019 Richard Cassady Journal of Risk and Reliability, Associate Editor, 2008-2019 W. Art Chaovalitwongse Omega Rho International Honor Society, the Honor Society of INFORMS, President, 2018-2020 The Fifth International Conference on Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science (LOD 2019), Tuscany, Italy September 10-13, 2019, Program Committee, 2019 Justin Chimka Stochastics & Quality Control, Editorial Board Member, 2017-2019 Quality Engineering, Editorial Board Member, 2019 Burak Eksioglu IISE Scholarship Fund Trustee, Chair, 2018-2019 Sandra Eksioglu Women in Engineering Division (WIED), ASEE, Chair, 2018-2020 Energy, National Resources, and Environment (ENRE), INFORMS, Secretary/Treasurer, 2018-2020 INFORMS Combined Colloquia, Chair, 2019-2020 Freight Transportation and Logistics SIG within the INFORMS TSL Society, Chair, 2018-2019 2019 TSL Dissertation Award Committee, Chair, 2018-2019 ENRE Awards Session, INFORMS Annual Meeting, Chair, 2019 INFORMS Annual Meeting, Session: General Freight Transportation 2, Chair, 2019 Energy Systems Division of IISE, Director, 2016-2019 Haitao Liao IISE Transactions on Quality & Reliability Engineering, Associate Editor, 2017-present IMA Journal of Management Mathematics, “SMRLO-2019 Special Issue,” Co-Guest Editor, 2019-2020 Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure - Special issue on “Resilient Energy Systems,” Co-Guest Editor 2019-2020 INFORMS Subdivisions Council, At-Large Representative for INFORMS Sections, Elected 2019 Xiao Liu Quality and Reliability Engineering International, Associate Editor, 2016-present

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Quality Engineering (Special Issue, Issue 3, 2020), Co-Editor, 2019-2020 Harnessing Value Through Streaming Data Analytics, INFORMS Editors’ Cut, EC2019 Volume 14, Co-Editor, 2019 2019 INFORMS Conference on Service Science, Conference Co-Chair, 2019 2019 AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (among the longest-running conferences in computer science and one of the most influential top conference in AI), Program Committee, 2019 The 4th IEEE International Workshop on Big Spatial Data in conjunction with 2019 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (IEEE BigData 2019), Program Committee, 2019 Quality, Statistics, and Reliability (QSR) at INFORMS, Elected Council Member, 2018-2020 Data Analytics & Information System (DAIS) division, IISE, Elected Board of Directors, 2019-2021 Quality, Statistics and Reliability (QSR) at INFORMS, Lead, International Subcommittee, 2018-2020 Ashlea Milburn Health Systems Engineering Alliance, Treasurer, 2017-2019 INFORMS Transactions on Education, Board Member, 2018-2019 INFORMS Transactions on Education, Associate Editor, 2018-2019 INFORMS Social Media Analytics Section Leadership, Team Member, 2018-2019 INFORMS Public Sector OR Society, Secretary-Treasurer, 2019 INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics Society Conference, Scientific Committee Member, 2019 Heather Nachtmann American Society for Engineering Education, Engineering Research Council Member & Board of Directors, 2015-2019 American Society for Engineering Management, Engineering Management Journal, Editor-in-Chief, 2018-2019 Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers, The Engineering Economist, Area Editor, 2004-present Arkansas Department of Transportation Advisory Council for Transportation Research, 2009-present Kim Needy The Engineering Economist, Book Editor, 2004-present Engineering Management Journal, Associate Editor, 2002-present Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers, Governing Board of the Body of Knowledge, 2016-2019 Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers, Task Force to Develop a Diversity & Inclusion Policy, 2018-2019 American Society for Engineering Education, Chair of Presidential Task Force for Graduate Education, 2019-2020 INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

Graduate Record Examination, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, 2017-2020 Conference of Southern Graduate Schools, Presidential Rotation, 2018-2021 Council of Graduate Schools, Committee on Research and Information Services, 2019 Council of Graduate Schools, Math, Physical Sciences, and Engineering Dissertation Award Committee, 2018-2019 United Way of Northwest Arkansas, Board of Directors, 2019-2021 Sarah Nurre INFORMS Subdivision Council, Fora Representative, 2018-2019 INFORMS Professional Recognition Committee, Committee Member, 2018-2019 INFORMS Chapters/Fora Committee, Committee Member, 2018-present INFORMS Volunteer Service Award Committee, Committee Member, 2019-2020 Greg Parnell INCOSE Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge, Area Editor, 2016-present INCOSE Fellows Committee, Chair, 2019-present Harry Pierson IISE Manufacturing & Design Division, Secretary, 2019-2021 IISE Manufacturing & Design Division, Committee Chair, 2018-2019 Ed Pohl Engineering Management Journal, Co-Editor, 2018-present Systems, Editorial Board, 2018-present IEEE Transactions of Engineering Management, Editorial Board, 2018-present IEEE Transactions on Reliability, Associate Editor, 2014-present Journal of Risk and Reliability, Associate Editor, 2005-present The Journal of Military Operations Research, Editorial Board, 2002-present

2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

Quality Technology and Quantitative Management, Associate Editor, 2012-present INFORMS Analytics Conference, Selects Committee / Conference Organizer, 2019 Reliability and Maintainability Symposium, Board of Directors, IISE Representative, 2019 Society of Reliability Engineers, President, 2017-2019 INFORMS, Meetings Committee, 2017-2021 Tish Pohl American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), Industrial Engineering Division – 5-year leadership rotation, Division Director, 2018-present ASEE John L. Imhoff Global Excellence Award, Selection Committee, 2017-present Chase Rainwater INFORMS Professional Recognition Committee, Chair, 2019 IISE OR Division, Past-President, 2019-2020 IISE Division, President, 2018-2019 IISE OR Division, Board of Directors, 2015-present IISE, Scholarship Committee, 2016-present Manuel Rossetti International Journal of Modeling and Simulation, Associate Editor, 2000-present Journal of Defense Analytics and Logistics, Editorial Advisory Board, 2016-present Winter Simulation Conference, General Chair, 2019-2024 Kelly Sullivan Operations Research Letters, Associate Editor, 2016-present INFORMS Journal on Computing, Associate Editor, 2019-present Shengfan Zhang INFORMS Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Committee Member, Subgroup Co-Chair, 2019 INFORMS Section on Public Sector OR, President Elect, 2019

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Local Robotics Team Represents United States in Dubai Root Negative One Robotics: FTC 9879; a robotics team from Don Tyson School of Innovation in Springdale, Arkansas, represented the United States at the 2019 FIRST Global Challenge in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. They were chosen out of 7,000 teams across the nation and competed against teams representing more than 185 nations, Oct. 24-27 at the Festival Arena in Dubai.

the team’s accomplishments to Ward’s attention. The club’s board approved their donation. Don Tyson School of Innovation Principal, Kelly Boortz was also supportive, as was the Northwest Arkansas Council, Cassady said. Derek Burleson, a Tyson representative said, “We’re proud to support these incredible students who are representing our community on a global stage.”

FIRST stands for, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. The organization is known for its robotics competitions for kids of various ages. Students design, build and program a robot to compete in a floor game.

Each team at the FIRST Global Challenge must consist of three to five students, ages 14-18, along with one adult technical mentor/ coach and one team organizer.

The team, mentored by University of Arkansas Industrial Engineering faculty members Richard Cassady and Chase Rainwater, was selected for the honor after taking the top award at the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship, in Houston, Texas, in April.

Root Negative One has 14 students. The five who competed in Dubai are all seniors: Abby Herrera, Sara Manos, Catalina Peterson, Meghan Boen, and Bryant Cassady. Coaches Cassady and Rainwater count as the two adults accompanying the team.

Bryant Cassady is Richard Cassady’s son.

The team has been together for five years, and were ecstatic at the news they had been selected. Once the initial delight faded, the reality of securing funding to support their venture became apparent. The community rapidly and enthusiastically came to their rescue.

“The support from the community was awesome,” Cassady said. “One of the things I like the most about it is, almost all of the money we raised came from Springdale. I like the fact we’re not just Team USA, we’re Team Springdale.”

Heath Ward, president of the Springdale Rotary Club, said fellow Rotarian and School District Superintendent Jim Rollins brought

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Kate Bowden and Isaac Brown also made the trip. The pair played a critical role in the team being chosen to represent the United States. Dru Samuelson, an engineering and robotics teacher at the School of Innovation also made the trip. They served in volunteer roles, Cassady said.

Laying the Groundwork In preparation for the robotics competition, the team was sent a box of parts with no instructions to create their own robot and compete for the title of best in the world. Team members held an open house to display their final robot on Oct. 18.

Herrera, Team USA’s spokesperson, said the team’s competitive nature led them to the world championship last year – winning the top award – and giving them a chance to compete on the global stage as the only team representing the U.S.A. “Even though we build robots, we do extensive community outreach and advocacy to try to increase participation of robotics INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

in public schools and around our community,” Herrera said.

“What appeals to me is the community engagement.”

For team member Manos, the event was a celebration. “This event was less about winning for us and more about celebration of the work that we’ve done and celebration of the global robotics community,” Manos said. “It was an amazing experience on both fronts.”

The Journey Begins...or Does it?

The team left Springdale by charter bus at 2 a.m. Oct. 22 for Dallas, where they were scheduled to catch a noon flight direct to Dubai. That flight was delayed -- first three hours, then six, then nine. The group took another bus more than 200 miles south to Houston to catch a different flight to Dubai. It added up to a day and a half of travel. “We were very exhausted,” Manos said.

During the competition, His Excellency, Yousef Al Otaiba, UAE Ambassador to the U.S., met with the team. He wished them luck and discussed the development of their robot built to solve this year’s challenge of cleaning up pollutants in the ocean.

The game, called “Ocean Opportunities,” involved two competing alliances – each comprised of three teams from different nations – working to clear the playing field, or “ocean,” of different-sized balls representing pollutants. Robots have 2 minutes and 30 seconds to collect the pollutants and deliver them to specific processing areas. Root Negative One won five of its nine matches and finished with a ranking of 62 out of 189 teams.

“The young people participating in the Challenge are helping create a better future through bold, creative thinking. Many of them will go on to invent cures and develop solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges, including climate change,” - Yousef Al Otaiba first time hearing about Arkansas,” Herrera said. “So we definitely know that some people will go home knowing where Arkansas is on the map.”

The team earned the Katherine Johnson Award for Engineering Documentation silver award, which recognizes teams for their work demonstrating the journey they took in building their robot.

It is one of several awards given out at the competition, each with a gold, silver and bronze designation. The gold Albert Einstein Award, deemed the most prestigious, went to Guyana.

The team is now focused on its regular robotics season through the FIRST Tech Challenge. The first competition of the season is Jan. 11.

This time, they will not have to travel far at all. The competition is in Hot Springs.

Abby Herrera said her favorite part of the trip was getting to know people from other countries, including Barbados, Libya, Vanuatu and the United Arab Emirates.

They met, in person for the first time, two teams they have been mentoring long-distance: one from Syria and another from Eritrea.

They also met Rick Perry, the U.S. Secretary of Energy.

Herrera said she and her teammates frequently found themselves giving U.S. geography lessons. “For a lot of teams, it was their 2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

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CURRENT GRANTS

A

s it relates to scholarly activity, the department productivity included submission of 30 proposals and 12 grant awards with a cumulative total of more than $5.3M. Total research expenditures exceeded $2.8M. During 2019-2020, the following research grants were active. The principal investigator is listed in bold.

Cassady, Richard, Arkansas Department of Higher Education, $4,000, “Brandon Satterwhite-SURF19: Recommend NBA Free Agency Decision Via Optimization,” 2019 Chaovalitwongse, W. Art, National Science Foundation, $150,000, “NCS-FO: Collaborative Research: Relationship of Cortical Field Anatomy,” 2017-2021 Chaovalitwongse, W. Art, Ed Pohl, Bryan Hill, and Xintao Wu, National Science Foundation, $1,000,000, “MDaS to Better Prepare STEM Students with Emerging Data Science Skills,” 2019-2024 Chimka, Justin, US Department of Transportation, $113,358, “Learning from USACE open Data for Locks,” 2018-2020 Hernandez, S. and Justin Chimka, Arkansas State Police, $79,340, “Seat Belt, Motorcycle Helmet, & Child Restraint Survey,” 2019-2020 Eksioglu, Sandra, Department of Energy, $460,846, “Intergrated Process Optimization for Biochemical Conversion,” 2018-2020 Liao, Haitao, National Science Foundation, $176,860, “Automated Knowledge Discovery in Reliability and Healthcare from Complex Data with Covariates,” 2016-2019

Liu, Xiao, University of Arkansas, $12,000, “Ind. Part Seed Grant,” 2020-2021 Liao, Haitao, Heather Nachtmann, and Xuan Shi, National Science Foundation, $200,000 “EAGER: SSDIM: Data Simulation for Interdependence Modeling,” 2017-2019 Milburn, Ashlea, National Science Foundation, $500,000, “CAREER: Information Accuracy and the Use of Social Data in Planning for Disaster Response,” 2016-2021 Milburn, Ashlea, Arkansas Dept of Higher Education, $4,000, “SURF Award, Optimal emergency response shelter placement,” 2019-2020 Milburn, Ashlea, National Science Foundation, $35,012, “Intern Supplement CAREER: Information Accuracy and the Use of Social Data in Planning for Disaster Response,” 2020 Nachtmann, Heather, and Kevin Hall, U.S. Department of Transportation, $7,000,000, “Tier 1 Maritime Transportation Research and Education Center,” 2013-2022 Nachtmann, Heather and Justin Chimka, U.S. Department of Transportation, $210,105, “Modeling Dynamic Behavior of Navigable Inland Waterways,” 2018-2020 Nachtmann, Heather, Jackson Cothren, Chase Rainwater, and Justin Chimka, U.S. Department of Transportation, $1,500,000, “Transportation and Maritime Analytics Partnerships Hub,” (TransMap) 2019-2022 Needy, Kim, Construction Industry Institute, $34,210, “Impact of Offsite Construction on the Workforce-2030 Program,” 2019-2021

Liu, Xiao, National Science Foundation, $399,907, “Integrating System Physics with Sensor Date for Health Prognostics of Complex Engineered Systems,” 2019-2022

Needy, Kim, IN/Council of Graduate Schools, $30,000, “Understanding PhD Career Pathways for Humanities and STEM Program,” 2017-2020

Liu, Xiao, National Science Foundation, $238,173, “RII Track-4: Harnessing Big Event Data with Heterogeneous Features: Intelligent Food-Borne Outbreak Investigations and Beyond,” 2016-2021

Nurre, Sarah, and Sarah Hernandez, Arkansas Department of Transportation, $250,396, “Prioritizing Solutions for Truck Parking,” 2018-2019

Liu, Xiao, University of Arkansas, $23,860, “Spatio-Temporal Big Data,” 2019-2020

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Nurre, Sarah, Kelly Sullivan, and Ben Runkle, U.S. Department of Transportation, $220,461, “Informing Post-Disaster Restoration Through Modeling Interdependent Agriculture,” 2018-2020 INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

Parnell, Gregory, Ed Pohl, and Eric Specking, Engineering Research Development Center, $320,000, “Engineered Resilient Systems Frameworks and Quantification,” 2019-2020 Parnell, Gregory and Edward Pohl, U.S. Department of Transportation, $85,695, “Trade-Off Analytics for Infrastructure Preservation,” 2018-2019 Pierson, Harry, Department of Defense, $274,100, “The test bed for research in collaborative robotics,” 2019-2020 Pierson, Harry, Department of Defense, $69,584, “Adaptive Control for Direct Write Additive Manufacture Geometric Integration,” 2019-2020 Pohl, Ed, Carol Reeves, Bob Beitle, and Cynthia Sides, National Science Foundation, $249,792, “I-Corps Commercialization STEP (STEM Training in Entrepreneurship Practices),” 2017-2022 Pohl, Ed, Haitao Liao, and Kelly Sullivan, US-AFIT, $373,053, “Science of Test Consortium,” 2018-2020 Rainwater, Chase, Frank Liu, Xiao Liu, Susan Gauch, Sarah Nurre, Joseph Geunes, and Xintao Wu, J.B Hunt Transportation, Inc., $2,750,000, “J.B. Hunt Center of Excellence,” 2017-2022 Rainwater, Chase, Art Chaovalitwongse and Jackson Cothern, National Science Foundation, $98,703, “Artificial Intelligence in Air Force Acquisition,” 2018-2019 Rainwater, Chase, Dale Thompson, Jia Di, and Steven C. Ricke, U.S. Department of Agriculture, $86,973, “Student Cross-Training Opportunities for Combining Food and Cybersecurities,” 20182020 Rainwater, Chase and Ed Pohl, Walmart Foundation, $202,495, “Poultry Excellence in China: Improving Food Safety in Poultry Supply Chain,” 2016-2019 Rainwater, Chase, Yanbin Li, and Ed Pohl, Walmart Foundation, $240,000, “Poultry Excellence in China: Improving Food Safety in Poultry Supply Chain Phase II,” 2019-2021

2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

Di, Jia, Chase Rainwater, Alan Mantooth, and Brajendra Nath Panda, National Science Foundation, $1,513,653, “CYBERWORKFORCE-Cyber Centric Multidisciplinary Security Workforce Development,” 2019-2024 Hernandez, Sarah and Chase Rainwater, Department of Transportation, $113,352, “Combining Truck & Vessel Tracking Data to Estimate Performance and Impacts,” 2019-2020 Rossetti, Manuel, Defense Logistics Agency, $60,000, “CELDi Membership Renewal 2018,” 2018-2020 Rossetti, Manuel and Shengfan Zhang, Medtronic, $60,000, “Supply Chain Analysis with Healthcare Manufacturing and Distribution Net,” 2017-2018 Rossetti, Manuel, Kim Needy, Carol Gattis, and Ed Clausen, National Science Foundation, $597,316, “Student Integrated Intern Research Experience (SIIRE) a Pathway to Graduate Studies,” 2012-2018 Rossetti, Manuel, National Science Foundation, $199,917, “PFI Air-TT: Fast Multi Echelon Optimization via Grouping,” 2017-2018 Sullivan, Kelly, National Science Foundation, $500,000, “CAREER: Survivable, Maintainable, and Adaptable Sensor Networks,” 2018-2023 Catanzaro, Donald and Shengfan Zhang, U.S. Department of Defense, $156,932, “Identifying Individuals at Risk of Progression to active Tuberculosis,” 2018-2019 Catanzaro, Donald and Shengfan Zhang, National Institutes of Health, $223,811, “Identifying Individuals at Risk of Progression to active Tuberculosis,” 2018-2020 Catanzaro, Donald and Shengfan Zhang, National Institutes of Health, $107,750, “An Antigen Detection Blood Test for Pulmonary Tuberculosis,” 2014-2019

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PUBLICATIONS

I

n 2019 the faculty of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Arkansas contributed 27 refereed journal articles, and 20 other refereed publications and proceedings.

The faculty authors are indicated in bold face type.

Refereed Journal Articles Cao, Y., H. Zhang, W. Li, M. Zhou, Y. Zhang, and W. Chaovalitwongse, “Comprehensive Learning Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm with Local Search for Multimodal Functions.” IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2019): 718-731 Nyflot, M., P. Thammason, L., Wootton, E. Ford, and W. Chaovalitwongse, “Deep Learning for Patient specific Quality Assurance: Identifying Errors in Radiotherapy Delivery by Radiomic Analysis of Gamma Images with Convolutional Neural Networks.” Medical Physics, Vol. 46, No. 2 (2019): 456-464 Mahanan, W., J. Natwichai, and W. Chaovalitwongse, “Characterizations of Local Recoding Method on k-Anonymity.”

Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies, Vol. 22 (2019): 648-658 Liu, S., S. Wang, W. Chaovalitwongse and S. Bowen, “Costeffectiveness of patient specific motion management strategy in lung cancer radiation therapy planning.” The Engineering Economist, Vol. 64, No. 4 (2019): 368-386 Bowen, S., D. Hippe, W. Chaovalitwongse, C. Duan, P. Thammasorn, X. Liu, R. Miyaoka, H. Vesselle, P. Kinahan, R. Rengan, and J. Zeng, “Voxel Forecast for Precision Oncology: predicting spatially variant and multiscale cancer therapy response on longitudinal quantitative molecular imaging.” Clinical Cancer Research, Vol. 25, No. 16 (2019): 5027-5037 Chimka, J., A. Fernandez De Luis, and G.W. McGee, “Access spacing based on turning-vehicle acceleration.” Transportation Research Record, Vol. 2618, (2019): 1-7 Azadi, Z., S.D. Eksioglu, B. Eksioglu, and G. Palak, “A Two-Stage Stochastic Model for Joint Pricing Inventory Replenishment with Deteriorating Products.” Computers and Industrial Engineering, Vol. 127, (2019): 625-642 Wang, S., H. Gangammanavar, S.D. Eksioglu, and S. Mason, “Stochastic Optimization for Energy Management in Power Systems with Multiple Microgrids.” IEEE Transactions on Smart

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Grid, Vol. 10, No. 1, (2019): 1068-1079 Liu, X., T. Yang, J. Pei, H. Liao, and E. Pohl, “Replacement and Inventory Control for a Multi-Customer Use-Oriented Product Service System with Decreasing Replacement Costs.” European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 273 (2019): 561-574 Gu, W., N. Fan, and H. Liao, “Evaluating Readmission Rates and Discharge Planning by Analyzing the Length-of-Stay of Patients.”

Annals of Operations Research, Vol. 276 (2019): 89-108 Ma, Z., S. Wang, S., H. Liao, and C. Zhang, “Engineering Driven Performance Degradation Analysis of Hydraulic Piston Pump Based on the Inverse Gaussian Process.” Quality and Reliability Engineering International, Vol. 35 (2019): 2278-2296 Yeo, K.M., Y.D. Hwang, X. Liu, and Kalagnanam, “Development of hp-inverse model by using generalized polynomial chaos.”

Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, Vol. 347 (2019): 1-20 Alves, T.C.L., Y. Neuman, K.D. Walsh, K.L. Needy, and R.Y. AlMaian, “Highly effective companies in supplier quality surveillance practices: a quantitative analysis.” Construction Management & Economics, (2019): 239-258 Schneider, K.R. and S.G. Nurre, “A Multi-Criteria Vehicle Routing Approach to Improve the Partner Agency Audit Schedule for Food Banks.” Omega, Vol. 84 (2019): 127-140 Specking, E., M. Cilli, G. Parnell, E. Pohl, C. Small, B. Cottom, and Z. Wade, “Assessing Resilience via Multiple Measures.” Journal of Risk Analysis, Vol. 39, No. 9 (2019): 1899-1911 Wade, Z., S. Goerger, G. Parnell, E. Pohl, and E. Specking, “Incorporating Resilience in an Integrated Analysis of Alternatives.” Journal of Military Operations Research, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2019): 5-16 De Icaza, R.R., G. Parnell, and E. Pohl, “Gulf Coast Port Selection using Multiple Objective Decision Analysis.” Decision Analysis, Vol. 16 (2019): 87-104 Wade, Z., G. Parnell, S. Goerger, E. Pohl, and E. Specking, “Convergent Set-Based Design for Design of Complex Resilient Systems.” Environment Systems and Decisions, Vol. 39 (2019): 118-127 Jin, Y., H.A. Pierson, and H. Liao, “Toolpath Allocation and Process Scheduling for Concurrent Fused Filament Fabrication INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

with Multiple Extruders.” IISE Transactions, Vol. 51 (2019): 192-208 Jin, Y., H.A. Pierson, and H. Liao, “Scale and Pose Invariant Feature Quality Inspection for Freeform Geometries in Additive Manufacturing.” ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, Vol. 141 (2019): 121008 James, B. and H.A. Pierson, “Modeling and Simulation of Industrial Waterjet Stripping for Complex Geometries.”

International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 105, No. 5 (2019): 2431-2446 Pierson, H.A., E. Celik, H. DeJarnette, L.S. Gutierrez, K. Johnson, H. Koerner, and J. Baur, “Mechanical Properties of Printed EpoxyCarbon Fiber Composites.” Experimental Mechanics, Vol. 59, No. 6 (2019): 843-857 Ruiz, C., E. Pohl, H. Liao, and K. Sullivan, “A Bayesian Framework for Accelerated Reliability Growth Testing with Multiple Sources of Uncertainty.” Quality and Reliability Engineering International, Vol. 35 (2019): 837-853 Cottam, B., E. Specking, C. Small, E. Pohl, G. Parnell, and R. Buchanan, “Defining Resilience for Engineered Systems.”

Engineering Management Research, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2019): 11-29 Hill, R. and E. Pohl, “A Structural Taxonomy for Metaheuristic Optimization Search Methods.” International Journal of Metaheuristics, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2019): 127-151 Enayaty, F., C. Rainwater, and T. Sharkey, “A logic-based decomposition approach for multi-period network interdiction models.” Omega, Vol. 87 (2019): 71-85 Heydari, M. and K.M. Sullivan, “Robust Allocation of Testing Resources in Reliability Growth.” Reliability Engineering & System Safety, Vol. 192 (2019): 106020

Refereed Conference Proceedings Schaub, S., D. Hippe, S. Bowen, L. Wootton, W. Chaovalitwongse, P. Kinahan, S. Apisarnthanarax, and M. Nyflot, “Radiomics of Sulfur Colloid SPECT/CT to Predict Child-Pugh Class in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients.” Proceedings of the SixtyFirst Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, San Antonio, TX, July 2019.

Choudhury, A. and B. Eksioglu, “Using Predictive Analytics for Cancer Identification.” Proceedings of the 2019 IISE Annual Conference, Orlando, FL, May 2019.

Gattis, Carol S., Xochitl Delgado Solorzano, Don Nix, Jennie S. Popp, Michele Cleary, Wenjuo Lo, Bryan Hill, and Paul Adams, “Work in Progress: A Path to Graduation: Helping First-Year Low Income, Rural Engineering Students Succeed.” Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Educators Annual Conference, Tampa, FL, June 2019.

Gattis, Carol S., Manuel Rossetti, Kim LaScola Needy, and Edgar C. Clausen, “Creating a Successful Pathway to Graduate Studies: The Student Integrated Intern Research Experience (SIIRE).”

Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Educators Annual Conference, Tampa, FL, June 2019.

Gattis, Carol S., Karl D. Schubert, and Michele Clearly, “Academic Industry Partnerships to Develop Tomorrow’s Engineering Innovators.” Proceedings of the International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, Bangkok, Thailand, March 2019.

Ruiz, C., H. Liao, and E. Pohl, “A Nonparametric DegradationBased Method for Modeling Reliability Growth.” Proceedings of the 65th Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium, Orlando, FL, January 2019.

Baycik, N.O. and K.M. Sullivan, “Robust Network Interdiction with Invisible Interdiction Assets.” IISE Transactions, Vol. 51 (2019):  Karimi, S., H. Liao and E. Pohl, “A Robust Tool for Estimating Field Reliability Using Aggregate Failure Time Data.” Proceedings of the 1332-1347 65th Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium, Orlando, Tutam, M. and J.A. White, “A Multi-Dock Unit Load Warehouse FL, January 2019. (Stan Ofsthun Best Student Paper Award) Design.” IISE Transactions, Vol. 51, No. 36 (2019): 232-247  Ruiz, C., H. Liao, E. Pohl and F. Sun, “Reliability Estimation from Tutam, M. and J.A. White, “A Multi-Dock Unit Load Warehouse Multiple Degradation Processes with Dependent Random Effects.”

Design with a Cross-Aisle.” Transportation Research, Vol. 129 Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Mathematical (2019): 247-262 Methods in Reliability, Hong Kong, June 2019.

Li, Bin, S. Zhang, S. Hoover, R. Arnold, and M. Capan, Azucena, J. and H. Liao, “Prognostic Using Dual-stage Attention“Microsimulation Model Using Christiana Care Early Warning based Recurrent Neural Networks.” Proceedings of the 11th System (CEWS) to Evaluate Physiological Deterioration.” IEEE International Conference on Mathematical Methods in Reliability, Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, Vol. 23, No. 5 Hong Kong, June 2019.

(2019): 2189-2195 Buyurgan, N., S. Zhang, and H.K. Okyay, “A Methodical Analysis of Inventory Discrepancy under Conditions of Uncertainty in Supply Chain Management.” International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, Vol. 32, No. 2 (2019): 272-290 2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

Jin, Y., H. Liao, and H. Pierson, “Automatic Feature-Based Point Cloud Alignment and Inspection.” Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Production Research, Chicago, IL, August 2019.

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Bipasha, T., J. Azucena, B. Alkhaleel, H. Liao, and H. Nachtmann, “Hybrid Simulation to Support Interdependence Modeling of a multimodal Transportation Network.” Proceedings of the 2019 Winter Simulation Conference, National Harbor, MD, December 2019.

Specking, E., G. Parnell, E. Pohl, and R. Buchanan, “Evaluating a Set-Based Design Tradespace Exploration Process.” Procedia Computer Science, 17th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research, Washington, DC, April 2019. Vol 153, pp.185-192.

Jin, Y., C. Ruiz, H. Liao, and H. Pierson, “A Simulation Framework for the Rebalancing and Maintenance of Bicycle-Sharing Systems.” Proceedings of the 2019 Winter Simulation Conference, National Harbor, MD, December 2019.

Bui, H., H.A. Pierson, S.G. Nurre, and K.M. Sullivan, “Tool Path Planning for Multi-Tool Additive Manufacturing.” Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Production Research, Chicago, IL, August 2019.

Liu, X., C.T. Tan, and D. Pare, “A Case Study on the Modeling of System State Degradation for Data Center Cooling Systems.”

Proceedings of the Prognostics and System Health Management Conference, Harbin, China, July 2017.

Harvey, W. and C. Rainwater, “Dynamic Risk Prediction - Towards a Machine Learning Framework.” Proceedings of the Poultry Excellence in China Annual Symposium, Guangzhou, China, June 2019.

Oztanriseven, F., F. Bu, and H. Nachtmann, “Measuring Economic Impacts of Inland Waterway Transportation.” Proceedings of the ASEM International Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, October 2019.

Rossetti, M.D. and J. Bright, “Analyzing Pre-Positioning within a Disrupted Bulk Petroleum Supply Chain.” Proceedings of the 2019 Winter Simulation Conference, National Harbor, MD, December 2019.

Shallcross, N., G. Parnell, E. Pohl, and D. Buede, “Integrating SetBased Design in the Department of Defense Acquisitions System to Inform Programmatic Decisions.” Proceedings of the ASEM International Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, October 2019.

Enayaty Ahangar, N. and K.M. Sullivan, “Algorithms and Complexity Results for Routing Trains through a Railyard Network.” Proceedings of the INFORMS Computing Society Conference, Knoxville, TN, January 2019.

Specking, E., G. Parnell, S. Georger, M. Cilli, and E. Pohl, “Using Set-Based Design to INFORM System Requirements and Evaluate Design Decisions.” Proceedings of the 29th Annual INCOSE International Symposium, Orlando, FL, July 2019.

Sullivan, K.M., “Optimally Maintaining a Wireless Sensor Network for Reliable Coverage.” Proceedings of the Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference (ISERC), Orlando, FL, May 2019.

 Indicates Award Winning Paper

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INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

UNDERGRADUATE OVERVIEW

T

he objectives of the undergraduate program in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Arkansas are to produce graduates who, within just a few years of graduation, can:

Engineering students choose industrial engineering for their College of Engineering major.

More information on the undergraduate program can be found at http:// industrial-engineering.uark.edu/academics/undergraduate-program/

• Successfully apply core industrial engineering knowledge and skills for industrial or public sector organizations,

Undergraduate Achievements

• Successfully pursue advanced professional degrees, graduate studies in industrial engineering, professional training, or engineering certification, and

• May graduate, Caroline Rhomberg, was offered a Fulbright U.S. Student Study/Research award for the upcoming academic year. Caroline will use her Fulbright Award to complete a two-year master’s degree in industrial engineering and operations research at the University of Ghent in Ghent, Belgium.

• Demonstrate professional and intellectual growth as managers and leaders in industrial engineering, society, and their communities.

Our curriculum includes not only industrial engineering courses, but also courses in engineering science, mathematics, physical science, English, economics and other social sciences, humanities, and fine arts. Richard Cassady, University Professor of Industrial Engineering, serves as the Chair of the INEG Undergraduate Studies Committee.

Students enter our program in their second year, as all firstyear College of Engineering students participate in the First-Year Engineering Program. Directed by Richard Cassady, the FirstYear Engineering Program includes two semesters of academic coursework, peer mentoring, professional development, academic advising, and academic coaching.

Since the First-Year Engineering Program was implemented in 2007, second-year retention (within the College of Engineering) of First-Year Engineering students has increased from approximately 60% to approximately 70%. Roughly 11% of retained First-Year 2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

On campus, Caroline researched network optimization with Kelly Sullivan, associate professor of industrial engineering.

She served as social chair for Alpha Pi Mu Industrial Engineering Honor Society and was an active member of Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society. She was also a founder of the Delta Gamma sorority on campus, serving as the director of scholarship. Rhomberg completed professional internships with two Arkansas-based companies, ArcBest and Dillard’s.

In spring of 2019, she studied mathematics and statistics at the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, Australia, where she was an active member of the university’s Exchange Student Network. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. • We had two students receive scholarships from the Alpha Pi Mu Honor Society. This was especially exciting as the organization only provides five scholarships nationally each year. Lexxy Gentile received the 2019-20 Robert and Jean Dryden Service Scholarship, and Karlton Haney received the John L. Imhoff Globalization Scholarship.

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IISE 2020-21 SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS

• The Associated Student Government and Student Alumni Association announced industrial engineering senior, Zan Johnson as the 2019 Homecoming King. Zan was also a finalist for the Schwarzman Scholarship

The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) conference has been rescheduled for October 31-November 3rd in New Orleans. IISE’s scholarship and fellowship program is in place to recognize graduate and undergraduate industrial engineering students for academic excellence and campus leadership.

• The Arkansas Alumni Association announced the 2020 Seniors of Significance in January. A total of 71 graduating seniors, commemorating the university’s founding date of 1871, were selected from more than 600 nominations and represent each University of Arkansas undergraduate academic college. These Seniors of Significance were selected based on their academic achievements, leadership skills, and extracurricular campus and/or community activities. Five industrial engineering seniors were among those selected: Lexxy Gentile, Karlton Haney, Zan Johnson, Kayla McKeon, Caroline Rhomberg.

While we have all had adjustments in our lives during the current health crisis, and there are no certainties at this point, we did have several students who were recipients of prestigious scholarships from IISE and we want to recognize this special honor for them.

• Junior, Camila Schrader, is the recipient of the C.B. Gambrell Undergraduate Scholarship. Available to undergraduate industrial engineering students, the award is based upon the nominee’s scholastic ability, character, leadership, and potential service to the industrial engineering profession.

• Team members Tevari Barker, Douglas Kamarade, Diego Rodriguez Kan, and Bradley Taylor were awarded first place the national logistics and Supply Cain Case Competition hosted by the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers.

The team is advised by Sandra Eksioglu, Hefley Professor in Logistics and Entrepreneurship.

• We have two students awarded the Dwight D. Gardner Scholarship. Seniors, Patrick Dougherty and Conner Waybright were the recipients.

• Each spring the Department recognizes an Oustanding Senior and this year Lexxy Gentile was selected for the honor, in addition to being the recipient of the 2019 Undergraduate Research Award.

• The Marvin Mundel Memorial Scholarship recipient is, Madeline Suellentrop. Priority for this scholarship is given to students who have demonstrated an interest in work measurement and methods engineering.

• U of A Senior Scholars, who received a 4.0 grade point average on all course work, including some transfer work: Clayton Ferguson, and Karlton Haney.

Honors Experience The honors experience in our department is designed for students who are also enrolled in the University of Arkansas Honors College. The experience includes a minimum of 12 credit hours of honors courses, as well as an undergraduate research project that culminates with a thesis. In 2019-2020, eight undergraduate students completed the Honors College experience in our department:

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Student

Thesis Title

Advisor

Maria Rene Arandia Jimenez

Locating Relay Nodes to Maximize Wireless Sensor Network Lifetime: A Numerical Study

Kelly Sullivan

Alexandra Gentile

Characterizing Statin Use among Prediabetic Patients with Predictive Analytics

Shengfan Zhang

Karlton Haney

Re-evaluating Coverage Metrics for Wireless Sensor Network Border Security Applications

Kelly Sullivan

Alexander Johnson

Optimal Emergency Response Shelter Placement based on Population Vulnerabilities

Ashley Milburn

Griffin Matthews

Intruder Preference and Route Selection: A GIS Data Approach

Greg Parnell

Caroline Rhomberg

Curriculum Optimization via Activity-on-Node Network Modeling

Kelly Sullivan

Sierra Wagner

A Simulation Approach to Evaluate the Impact of Breast Cancer Overdiagnosis on Patient Outcomes

Shengfan Zhang

Henley Wells

Improving Offensive Player Performance Measures for Assessing Free Agent Major League Baseball Players

Ed Pohl

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

Industrial Engineering Seniors Recognized With Awards for Two-Semester Capstone Projects

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uring the 2019-20 academic year, 65 industrial engineering students participated in the Industrial Engineering Senior Capstone Experience as part of 13 teams of five students.

Every student pursuing the Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering at the University of Arkansas is required to complete the two-semester course sequence. Richard Cassady, university professor of industrial engineering, coordinates the Industrial Engineering Capstone Experience courses.

The teams are matched with an industry partner and led by a student project manager. In the fall semester, teams begin by conducting background research on their industry partner and the issues of interest to that partner.

Students develop a detailed understanding of the process or system of interest and obtain the data necessary to conduct preliminary analysis into the issues faced by the industry partner.

Based on their preliminary analysis, they define objectives for their spring semester work, the performance measures they will use to measure their success in achieving the objectives, and the deliverables they will provide their partner at the end of the year.

In the spring semester, teams apply their industrial engineering skills to achieve their project objectives. Through their defined performance measures, they assess their success in achieving their objectives and create their project deliverables. They also document information necessary for their industry partner to use their deliverables.

With the end-of-year capstone symposium cancelled this year, due to the health emergency, the awards were based on the entirety of the work and efforts of the teams throughout the two semester course.

Team Awards • Project of the Year: Casey Randolph, Project Manager; Jillian Hatfield, Brandon Fangio, Sullivan Siebken, and Xavier Wills team members.

Project Title: Expediting Pricing Analyst Workflow by Categorizing Sales Proposals using Logistic Regression and Machine Learning Industry Partner: ArcBest • Data Analysis Award: Cayman Carlisle, Project Manager; Elizabeth Bean, James Gairhan, Annie Peta, and William Warren team members.

2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

Project Title: Improving the Re-Scheduling of Steel Bar Downstream Processes by Predicting Rework Tendencies and Processing Times Industry Partner: Gerdau • Modeling Award: Alexandra Gentile, Project Manager; Irina Britten, Brock Dunn, Wesley Nimmo, and Keith Scheffler team members.

Project Title: Optimizing Intermodal Dray Driver Scheduling under Daily Freight Imbalance using Stochastic Optimization Industry Partner: J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. • Decision Support Award: Clay Ferguson, Project Manager; Alex Hendrickson, Jonah Murrey, Wade Shike, and Andrew Watson team members.

Project Title: Reducing Expiration and Returns in Sterile Processing using Reorder Point and Economic Order Quantity Methods Industry Partner: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences • Impact Award: Karlton Haney, Project Manager; Chase Daril, Trevor Perry, Jack West, and Bryan Withers team members.

Project Title: Minimizing Operational Cost of Fleet Allocation using Linear Programming Industry Partner: ArcBest

Individual Awards • Outstanding Project Managers: Clay Ferguson, Casey Randolph, and Cayman Carlisle.

• Outstanding Team Members: Alex Hendrickson, Kayla McKeon, and Tevari Barker.

• Outstanding Faculty Advisors: Professor, Manuel Rossetti; Professor, Sandra Eksioglu; and Associate Professor, Justin Chimka.

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• Outstanding Industry Partners: Alex Hoge and Trenton Cason, ArcBest; Joseph Sanford and Kevin Sexton, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; and Garrett Rea, The Hershey Company.

Other Projects Additional projects the Capstone Experience Teams completed were: • Project Title: Improve Staffing Strategies to Meet Seasonal Patient Census Variation using Discrete-Event Simulation and Optimization Team Members: Brianna Gomez, Project Manager; Matthew Phillips, Brandon Satterwhite, Mason McLaughlin, and Ana Guerra Industry Partner: Arkansas Children’s Northwest Emergency Department • Project Title: Improving Manufacturing Shop Process Visibility through Simulation Modeling Team Members: Kaitlin Erickson, Project Manager; Erin Hills, Ryan Sheppard, Patrick Simpson, and Anna Watkins Industry Partner: Dassault Falcon Jet • Project Title: Predicting Customer Financial Risk Team Members: Griffin Mathews, Project Manager; Natalie Akers, Tevari Barker, Chandler Little, and Alex Souvanouphong Industry Partner: J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. • Project Title: Improving Forecasting Methods for Course Enrollment Using Predictive Modeling, and Course Balancing Methods Using Nonlinear Programming

Team Members: Alexander Johnson, Project Manager; Carlos Sanabria, Carlos Diaz, Bradley Taylor, and Ali Alsufayan Industry Partner: Institutional Research and Assessment at the University of Arkansas • Project Title: Forecasting Innovation Product Rollout Sales through Machine Learning Techniques Team Members: Paul Sherrod, Project Manager; Ryan Hamilton, Elliot Porsch, Caroline Rhomberg, and Madison Stacy Industry Partner: The Hershey Company • Project Title: Automating Vehicle Routing Summaries with Simulation for Uncertain Node Locations Team Members: Nathan Clark, Project Manager; Justin Blair, John Foltz, Sierra Wagner, and Mary Pollmann Industry Partner: J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. • Project Title: Reducing Triage Protocol Errors in the Arkansas Trauma System using a Neural Network Algorithm Team Members: Henley Wells, Project Manager; Maria Rene Arandia, Miles Gagnepain, Diego Rodriguez, and Donna Quedens Industry Partner: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences • Project Title: Maximizing Violation Capture Rate through Simulation and Optimization of Parking Control Officer Routing Team Members: Jeremy Muniz, Project Manager; Douglas Kamarade, Kayla McKeon, Christine Rheinberger, and Franco Suito Alayza Industry Partner: University of Arkansas Transit and Parking

A Special Thank You to our Industry Partners!

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INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

GRADUATE OVERVIEW

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raduate course offerings of the Department, as well as research opportunities for Industrial Engineering graduate students, continue to grow and diversify. A sampling of our graduate students’ published work, highlighted in this section, illustrates the range of research interests being pursued under the guidance of our faculty. Also featured in this section is our professional graduate program in Master of Science in Operations Management, Master of Science in Engineering Management and our new Master of Science in Operations Analytics.

For students pursuing graduate studies in the field of Industrial Engineering, we offer several options with respect to degree, area of specialization, and full-time or part-time studies.

Graduate degrees for on-campus students are offered in two areas:

• Engineering Management • Manufacturing & Automation These areas continue to be supported by the following research centers and laboratories: • • • •

Center for Excellence in Logistics and Distribution Mack Blackwell Rural Transportation Center Maritime Transportation Research and Education Center ReliaSoft Risk, Reliability and Maintainability Research Alliance • Arkansas Security Research and Education Institute • Institute for Advanced Data Analytics • J.B. Hunt Innovation Center of Excellence

We are proud to report that we are ranked in the top • Master of Science in Industrial Engineering (M.S.I.E.) 25 Best Graduate Schools • Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering (Ph.D.) in U.S. News & World In addition to traditional degree options, the Report, moving up 11 Department also offers online the Master of spots overall and 12 spots Science in Operations Management (M.S.O.M.), among public institutions, the Master of Science in Engineering Management to number 17!

(M.S.E.M.) and the new Master of Science in Operations Analytics (M.S.O.A.).

Our faculty’s wide range of expertise provides opportunities for study in a variety of areas such as: • Transportation, Logistics & Distribution • Healthcare Systems Engineering • Reliability, Maintainability & Quality Engineering 2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

Professor, Burak Eksioglu, serves as Graduate Coordinator for Industrial Engineering. Dr. Greg Parnell serves as Director for the Master of Science in Operations Management and the Master of Science in Engineering Management programs. Dr. Manuel Rossetti is serving as Director of the NEW Master of Science in Operations Analytics program.

More information can be found at: industrialengineering.uark.edu

HIGHLIGHTS We are proud to report that we are ranked in the top 25 Best Graduate Schools in U.S. News & World Report, moving up 11 spots overall and 12 spots among public institutions, to number 17!

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Yu “Chelsea” Jin received the honor of Outstanding Graduate Student for 2020. Jin has had a phenomenal career within the Department of Industrial Engineering. She has maintained a 4.0 average for the entirety of her time at the University of Arkansas. She currently serves as the President of the INFORMS Student Chapter.

Jin has distinguished herself nationally with service to both the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the Quality, Statistics, and Reliability section of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IISE). She volunteered to monitor technical sessions at the 2017 INFORMS Annual Meeting and served as a session organizer and chair for “Big Data for Reliability – II” at the 2018 IISE Annual Conference. She is also organizing a session, “Monitoring and Control of Advanced Manufacturing Processes” for the upcoming 2020 IISE Annual Conference in New Orleans.

Jin has published papers in IISE Transactions, the ASME Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering, and has one paper under review with the Rapid Prototyping Journal, in addition to numerous conference papers and presentations.

She has received the Graduate Research Award, Graduate Academic Award, and Kuroda Graduate Fellowship in Engineering from the University of Arkansas, the I-SIM Diversity Award from the INFORMS Simulation Society, and the Gilbreth Memorial Fellowship (twice) from IISE.

• Cesar Ruiz was the recipient of the Hans Reiche Scholarship given by the Society of Reliability Engineers to attend the annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS) in Palm Springs, California. This is the second time Ruiz has been the recipient of the award.

In addition to this recognition, Ruiz

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was selected as the recipient of the 2019 Graduate Research Award by the Department of Industrial Engineering. The award recognizes the graduate student who made the most valuable contributions to departmental research efforts.

Faculty members nominate students and the final decision is made by faculty vote.

• Samira Karimi and professors Haitao Liao and Ed Pohl were the second place winner of the Thomas L. Fagan, Jr., RAMS Student Paper Award. They presented the paper, “Covariate Selection Considering Measurement Error with Application in Accelerated Life Testing,” at RAMS 2020. They will be recognized at RAMS 2021 with a plaque and honorarium.

• The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) conference has been rescheduled for October 31-November 3rd in New Orleans. IISE’s scholarship and fellowship program is in place to recognize graduate and undergraduate industrial engineering students for academic excellence and campus leadership. In addition to the undegraduate scholarship awards mentioned earlier, we also have a graduate student recipient.

The John F. Fargher Scholarship is awarded to doctoral student, Maryam Alimohammadi. The award is intended to recognize academic excellence and noteworthy contribution to the development of the industrial engineering profession.

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

Master of Science in Operations Analytics

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he Department of Industrial Engineering will offer a new graduate program in fall 2020. The Master of Science in Operations Analytics (M.S.O.A.) is open to students interested in leveraging data to make organizations run more efficiently.

Students from engineering and non-engineering backgrounds are encouraged to enroll. Students with undergraduate degrees from ABET-accredited industrial engineering programs should not have to complete any prerequisite courses.

David Humphrey, vice president-investor relations with ArcBest, said the program would position graduates to improve business processes by analyzing data.

“More and more at ArcBest, data related to every element of our company is abundantly available. For us to be successful, it is essential that we have the ability to effectively analyze that data in order to refine processes that improve our customers’ experience and profitably grow our company. We are excited to know that the new University of Arkansas M.S.O.A. graduate program will develop the important analytical skills that engineering graduates need in data management and modeling.”

The master’s program provides students with the professional and intellectual growth needed to become managers and leaders in operations analytics. Students will gain the core operations analytics and quantitative modeling skills to better manage, control and improve the operations of enterprise or public-sector organizations.

Through coursework, students will develop knowledge of the principles and practices of analytics modeling methods, such as optimization, statistical modeling, machine learning, simulation, 2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

and computing methods, as they apply to the strategic, operational and tactical control of operations.

“Data-driven insights directly impact how industries produce a product or service a customer. Continuing education in a field driven by analytics and engineering will only enhance student’s critical thinking and data visualization skills. Operational Analytics knowledge will make valuable contributions in turning a company’s vision into reality,” said Karen Jewell, vice president engineering and technology with J.B. Hunt.

For students with a degree other than an ABET-accredited industrial engineering degree, prerequisite courses may be required and are available through the industrial engineering program. Students are expected to have completed: • Mathematics courses through differential and integral calculus of several variables • Vector calculus • Linear algebra • A calculus-based probability and statistics course • A computer programming course

Skills Graduates Acquire: • Develop descriptive, predictive and prescriptive mathematical and statistical models and to apply those models through computational methods to problems of controlling and improving enterprise operations.

• Use foundational knowledge and apply critical thinking skills to problem identification, problem-solving, and decision-making, within the context of controlling and improving enterprise operations.

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• Adapt analytics concepts to interpret and communicate findings and implications to senior decision makers.

• Use information systems, statistics and computing principles, and apply state-of-the-art technologies for data representation, data retrieval, data manipulation, computational analytics, data analysis, and visualization as they apply analytics within enterprise operations.

The Industrial Engineering Graduate Program ranked in the top 25 Best Graduate Schools in U.S. News & World Report this year, moving up 11 spots overall, and 12 spots among public institutions, to number 17.

For more information contact: opan@uark.edu or visit: operations-analytics.uark.edu

• Program graduates will be prepared for occupations as: General and operations managers, Operations research analysts, and Management analysts.

The Union at Night The Arkansas Union is the heart of the University campus, providing a community for students and others to connect to convenient services such as dining, entertainment, meeting/event spaces, student involvement and so much more.

There is always something exciting happening at the Union!

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INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

MSOM AND MSEM OVERVIEW

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he Master of Science in Operations Management graduate degree program continues to thrive. This applied management program for working professionals attracts managers and professionals in various business sectors, industries, military branches of service, and government bodies.

In the 2018-2019 academic year, there were 677 unique students enrolled in the program and a total of 2433 course enrollments for the year. Ninety percent of those enrollments were online courses.

The MSOM program continues to be the University’s largest graduate program with 112 students completing their degree in the 2019-2020 academic year.

Operations Management coursework emphasizes practical knowledge in areas such as project management, decision making, supply chain management, quality management, and many other areas of importance to today’s manager.

Program content focuses squarely on the concepts, methods, and tools that are essential to the successful management of work processes, projects, and people in a wide spectrum of organizations. The curriculum has an Industrial Engineering perspective on the principals of management, and equips graduates to carry out their managerial responsibilities more effectively. Students are able to select from 33 graduate courses to make up the ten required to complete the degree.

The program is offered at the University of Arkansas’s flagship Fayetteville campus, at live Graduate Resident Centers, and via online learning. It is also hosted on two active duty bases, Naval Support Activity Mid-South at Millington, Tennessee; and Hurlburt Field Air Force Base at Fort Walton Beach, Florida. In addition,

2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

live instruction is offered at Walton College of Business Executive Education Center in Downtown Little Rock.

By operating in eight-week terms and having an online option for program courses, the flexibility of the program accommodates students employed full-time by Fortune 500 companies such as Walmart, Sam’s Club, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt Transport, FedEx, Lockheed-Martin, and Pratt & Whitney. We are proud of our military affiliation and have many current military members and veterans as students from all branches of service stationed at our host bases, and throughout the world.

The curriculum is presented by outstanding faculty members who are drawn from the University’s Industrial Engineering Department and from businesses throughout the country. There are six IE faculty members involved. We have two full-time MSOM instructors, and 61 part-time faculty members who teach in the program. As instructors, the program recruits business professionals who are academically qualified and have accrued extensive managerial industry experience in the specific subject that they teach.

Admission to the MSOM program requires a student to have a minimum grade-point average of 3.0 either on the last 60 credit hours of attempted baccalaureate coursework, or from all coursework from the first conferred baccalaureate degree from a regionally accredited institution. The program now encourages students who have a GPA between 2.5 and 3.0 to enter one of the accompanying graduate certificates in order to gain admission if they complete coursework with a 3.5 GPA. This is a popular option that is helping more students matriculate into the program.

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NEW GRADUATE CERTIFICATE The motto, “we practice what we teach” guides the program. With this goal in mind, the program introduced graduate certificates in Lean Six Sigma and Homeland Security starting in the 2019-2020 Academic Year.

The Lean Six Sigma Graduate Certificate has four required courses and prepares the student to take the IASSC Green Belt Certification Exam. The Homeland Security Graduate Certificate consists of three required courses and one elective and prepares the student to take the ASIS Certified Protection Professional (CPP) exam. The certificate programs combined have fifty-five students independent of the M.S.O.M. program.

Students can work toward the M.S.O.M. degree and the certificate program simultaneously, with no extra credit hours required.

The program continues to evolve in creating new courses and rebuilding existing courses. Advanced Lean Six Sigma is a new course introduced in fall. The following courses are being rebuilt: • • • • • • •

Economic Decision Making Human Resource Management Cost Estimation Models Global Competition for Operations Managers Supply Chain Management Human Factors for Operations Managers Introduction to Engineering Management

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT The Master of Science in Engineering Management marks its second year with admissions continuing to exceed initial expectations with 63 students. Additionally, the program has 11 graduates in its third year. The curriculum introduces students to historical and contemporary management theories and provides practical techniques to apply managerial best practices within technical environments. This program is designed for engineers with ABET-accredited bachelor degrees in engineering who want to move into leadership positions in their organizations.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Lisa Milligan joined our team as M.S.O.M.’s new Advisor and Program Assistant. She comes to us from the Geosciences department on campus, where she spent 12 years working with students, staff and faculty. She has years of experience working with numerous University administrative systems, student advising and enrollment, and recruiting and special events.

Karin Hickenbotham is M.S.O.M.’s new Enrollment Services Manager, and she brings years of experience in student

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recruitment, admissions, advising, and teaching to this role.

She comes to us from the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith, where she most recently served as the Director of Student Success & Support for the College of Business. Before becoming an Arkansan, Karin worked in Academic Advisement at the University of Central Oklahoma, where she also earned her Master of Education in Training and Development. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies.

Karin will serve as an Academic Advisor to M.S.O.M. students in Fayetteville and online. She will also process M.S.O.M. admissions, and aid in outreach efforts.

Alyson Ballew joined the M.S.E. and M.S.E.M. Programs in December. She is a Program Specialist for the M.S. Engineering and M.S. Engineering Management programs.

She came from the College of Education where she worked with various grant funded teacher training programs in recruiting and enrollment and previously worked in the Treasurer’s Office in student accounts. She recently graduated with her M.Ed. in Human Resource and Workforce Development and is continuing on for her Ed.D. Marge Pasch was announced as the College of Engineering’s Employee of the Quarter by Dean John English at the Fall Staff Retreat in October.

Marge originally joined the program in 2000 and served until 2003, then returned in January 2012. Marge advises approximately 200 students and takes significant interest in her students’ goals and successes. She was a Navy Musician (flutist) while serving in the Navy and her hobby is quilting.

ANNUAL FACULTY MEETING The annual Faculty Meeting was held in July 2020. Over 50 faculty members from all over the United States attended the meeting to work on course development and to participate in training.

During the meeting, instructors learned best practices from one another, engaged in a panel discussion with advisors, and received insightful information and updates regarding department plans and online services such as ProctorU and Blackboard.

Instructional Designers with the U of A Global Campus attended the meeting aid instructors in course technology initiatives.

M.S.O.M. and M.S.E.M. staff members also attended to provide insight from all perspectives.

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

IE BY THE NUMBERS

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ALUMNI HIGHLIGHTS

NSF CAREER Awards

State of Arkansas Chief Data Officer

Two of our doctoral alumni have been awarded the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) awards.

The Arkansas Department of Transformation and Shared Services recently named Josh McGee the state’s chief data officer.

Assistant Professor, Yisha Xiang (MS ‘06, PhD ‘09) Texas Tech University - Whitacre College of Engineering and Assistant Professor, Yanchao Liu (MS ‘08) Wayne State University College of Engineering, were both selected to receive the award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

McGee (BS ‘03, MS ‘07), the associate director of the Office for Education Policy in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas, will lead the state’s effort to bring disparate data together and put it to use to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of state government.

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

During March, Xiang was also featured by Texas Tech during a celebration of women faculty who exemplify excellence in research, scholarship, creative activity, teaching, and mentoring.

She included former advisor, Richard Cassady, as one of several important mentors who have inspired her in pursuing her academic goals.

Alumni Teaching Award

Arkansas Business Hall of Fame Reynie Rutledge, BSIE ‘72, chair and chief executive officer of First Security Bancorp.

Was among four business leaders who have made significant contributions to the banking, construction, publishing, and real estate industries honored in Little Rock at the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Mr. Rutledge is also a member of the Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineering.

Promotion to Executive Vice President Harps Food Stores has promoted J. Max Van Hoose, BSIE ‘91, to executive vice president. Previously he was VP of Store Planning. Van Hoose has previously been featured in Talk Business & Politics Forty Under 40 and is a member of the Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineering.

The “Outstanding Rodney Kizito” Alumna, Jenn Pazour (MS ‘08, PhD ‘11) received the 2019 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Alumni Teaching Award.

This award is presented to an RPI faculty member for their outstanding teaching techniques, contributions to campus experience, and commitment to students.

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Master’s alumni and doctoral candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Rodney Kizito, was recognized by the Tickle College of Engineering.

Industrial and systems engineering Department Head INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

John Kobza described Kizito as an “industrial engineering cheerleader,” and an overall great ambassador for the department. Kizito’s dedication and enthusiasm earned him notice as the 2020 Outstanding Graduate Student in ISE.

Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineering Induction Ceremony The annual induction and banquet for the Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineering was unfortunately cancelled this year due to the health emergency. However, those who would have been inducted will still be inducted, just next year. There were eight inductees.

• Bonnie Sue Boardman (BSIE 1991, PhD 1997) Bonnie lives in Mansfield, TX and is an Associate Professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Texas-Arlington.

• David Rieske (BSIE 2003, MSIE 2005) David lives in Rogers, AR and is Senior Manager Customer Logistics with Bayer Consumer Health.

• Thomas Duncan (BSIE 2005) Tom lives in Charlotte, NC and is Director of Investment Banking with Wells Fargo Securities.

• Alex Andelman (BSIE 2003, MSIE 2005) Alex lives in Rogers, AR and is Director of Strategic Accounts with J.B. Hunt in Lowell.

• Ryan Daniels (BSIE 2001, MSIE 2003) Ryan lives in Tallahassee, FL and is Vice President-Manufacturing with Coastal Forest Resources in Havana, FL. • Chase Rainwater (BSIE 2004) Chase lives in Springdale, AR and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Arkansas.

We also had two candidates nominated in 2019 who were unable to attend the banquet for induction. Hopefully they can join us in 2021.

• Willie Montgomery III (BSIE 2004, MSIE 2009) Willie lives in Rogers, AR and is Senior Director, Data Scientist within the Supply Chain Planning and Analytics team of Walmart Inc. • Nia Wright (BSIE 1993) Nia is an Instructor in the Master of Science in Operations Management Program at the University of Arkansas College of Engineering.

DECISION DAY 2020 - March 6 All incoming first-year engineering students have their majors set to “Engineering First-Year Student”. In the first-year engineering courses, students learn about the nine engineering disciplines offered at the University of Arkansas, so they can make an informed decision about their major.

Students declare their major in March during a Decision Day celebration. The day is much like the National Signing Day in College Football, with students coming to the front of the room and making the announcement of which program they have chosen.

They then go to the area assigned to their program, and are officially welcomed to the department.

The event has become a favorite of all departments, and each student is cheered for their choice. With the atmosphere of a carnival, there is quite a bit of fun rivalry to see who will get the most ‘signed’ students for the day.

This year, Industrial Engineering gained 62 new students!

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LIAISON COMMITTEE

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he Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineering (AAIE) was founded in 1986 to recognize the achievements of University of Arkansas Industrial Engineering graduates and to provide continuing guidance and support to the Department of Industrial Engineering. The Academy also provides its members with the opportunity to nurture the organization that played an important role in their professional growth and development. Academy members provide tremendous financial resources that endow many scholarships for the Industrial Engineering students.

The AAIE organizes a Liaison Committee that serves as our advisory board and meets annually to evaluate the department.

The committee is comprised of accomplished professionals from academia, business, and industry who bring both an applied perspective and an independent assessment to the Industrial Engineering program at the University of Arkansas.

It is the opinion of this year’s Liaison Committee that overall, the Industrial Engineering Department continues to be extremely successful in delivering its mission. Across the board, student, faculty, and staff successes over the past year are a testament to this. Departmental leadership remains strong and committed to continuous improvement.

The members of the 2020 Liaison Committee are: • Bill Klimack, Chevron Decision Analysis Functional Manager.

• Vance Clement, Chief Executive Officer at Lineus Medical.

• Jonathon Fite, Managing Partner of KMF Investments.

• David Humphrey, Vice President of Investor Relations for ArcBest in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

• Karen Jewell, Vice President of Engineering and Technology at J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. Jewell is also the current President of the Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineering.

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• Willie Mongtomery, III, Senior Director of Data Science in Supply Chain Analytics with Walmart Inc.

• Jenn Pazour, Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

• Tarek Taha, Sr. Director Engineering & Technology with J.B. Hunt.

• Eileen Van Aken, Professor and Department Head of the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

LABORATORIES OVERVIEW

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he Industrial Engineering Department has three physical computer laboratories for student use. These are the Foust Lab (BELL 4127-4128), Stephens Lab (BELL 4134A) and a general access computer lab shared with Civil Engineering (BELL 4133). All are equipped with the latest hardware, software and specialized programs.

David D. and Nancy J. Foust Computation Laboratory

The Foust Computation Laboratory is Industrial Engineering’s premier computing and teaching lab, providing general computing access for all students and supports the computing needs associated with course work. Included in the lab are a project area with whiteboards to encourage student discussions.

Occupying approximately 2,100 square feet, the computer lab area can accommodate 44 students.

The Industrial Engineering Department is committed to providing the latest in computer technology, software capability, and technical expertise to enhance the educational experience for all students.

The Foust Computation Lab is open 24 hours a day throughout the semester to all faculty, staff, and students enrolled in industrial engineering classes.

Capstone Experience Lab Used primarily for students in the Industrial Engineering Capstone Experience course, the space is equipped with a conference area, mobile media cart with a 60� television monitor, computer, and conference phone. This enables students to meet with industry partners, review draft versions of course milestones, and make presentations of project results.

Multi-Purpose Teaching Lab This lab supports two undergraduate courses, Methods & Standards and Ergonomics. The space is used to the hold lab meetings for these two courses where students conduct experiments related to cognitive ergonomic concepts, hand tool design, anthropometric measurement, time studies, work sampling, and worksite analysis, and design. The space also features a conference area where student teams can meet to discuss research.

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The Bill and Margaret Harrison Family Video Conferencing Facility The Bill and Margaret Harrison Family Video Conferencing Facility was made possible by a contribution from alumni William and Margaret Harrison of Little Rock.

The paramount feature in the facility is the state-of-the-art software and equipment. The facility is equipped with LifeSize 220 Express, described as the most full-featured video conferencing system available.

The AT&T Manufacturing Automation Laboratory

The system allows remote video and audio communication between up to eight parties concurrently, and users can share content, control cameras, change layouts, and add participants with ease. It includes an application for smart phones, tablets, and computers and has the ability to record meetings and stream viewing.

The Manufacturing Automation Lab allows students to gain hands-on experience with technologies that boost manufacturers’ efficiency and agility. This includes both robotics and additive manufacturing.

The lab hosts two traditional robotic work cells. The visionequipped Adept Cobra is a 4-axis SCARA geometry that is ideal for high-speed pick-and-place operations. The other work cell features an Adept Viper 6-axis articulated arm mounted on a 2-axis Adept Python Cartesian robot. This is a common arrangement in industry for manufacturing tasks such as robotic welding and machine loading/unloading.

The lab also features two collaborative robots: Baxter from Rethink Robotics and a UR10 from Universal Robots. Both are intrinsically safe and possess human-friendly task specification, allowing humans to enter the work envelope and interact with the robots. With two seven-axis arms, integrated machine vision, and

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an interactive display, Baxter can handle complex perception and manipulation tasks.

The UR10 is a traditional 6-axis articulated arm. Together they represent the next generation of industrial robotics.

The Turtlebot mobile robot from Clearpath Robotics is the lab’s fully autonomous robot that gives students experience with the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technologies used in both industrial mobile robotics and autonomous vehicles.

Additionally, the lab stays particularly active in the realm of Additive Manufacturing. The Stratasys uPrint is an industrialgrade fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printer. Further enhancing exposure to this type of manufacturing is the lab’s MakerGear M2 desktop 3D printers, Simplify3D printing software, and Autodesk Inventor CAD software to provide lowcost, hands-on 3D printing experience for students.

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

Larry and Gwen Stephens Undergraduate Research Laboratory The Larry and Gwen Stephens Undergraduate Research Lab provides state-of-the-art facilities including the latest computer hardware and software designed for industrial engineering projects.

The lab provides individual workspace for up to 15 undergraduate students. To be eligible for a space in this lab, a student must be engaged in research with an industrial engineering faculty member.

ReliaSoft Risk, Reliability, and Maintainability Research Alliance ReliaSoft Corporation donated software to the University of Arkansas to form and support the ReliaSoft Risk, Reliability, and Maintainability Research Alliance. The software provides engineering students with state of the art tools to help identify potential risks and calculate the severity of disruptions within a manufacturing or transportation environment.

More information on the Industrial Engineering Labs can be found at: industrial-engineering.uark.edu/Research/Labs/

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OUR FACULTY

Carrie Beam, Ph.D.

W. Art Chaovalitwongse, Ph.D.

University Professor Ph.D. I.S.E (Virginia Tech) M.S.I.S.E (Virginia Tech) B.S.I.S.E (Virginia Tech)

Research Professor Ph.D. (University of Florida) M.S. (University of Florida) B.Eng. (King Mongkut Institute of Technology)

Justin R. Chimka, Ph.D.

Burak Eksioglu, Ph.D.

Sandra Eksioglu, Ph.D.

Associate Professor Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh) M.S.I.E (University of Pittsburgh) B.S.I.E. (University of Pittsburgh)

John R. English, Ph.D., PE

Professor and Dean, College of Engineering Ph.D. (Oklahoma State University) M.S.O.R. (University of Arkansas) B.S.E.E. (University of Arkansas)

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C. Richard Cassady, Ph.D.

Teaching Associate Professor Ph.D., M.S. (University of California), B.S. (Princeton University)

Professor Ph.D. (University of Florida) M.S.E.B.M. (University of Warwick) B.S.I.E. (Bogazici University)

Professor Ph.D. (University of Florida) M.S.E.M.S. (Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania) B.S.B.A. (University of Tirana)

Xiao Liu, Ph.D.

Haitao Liao, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor Ph.D. I.E. (National University of Singapore) B.Eng.M.E. (Harbin Institute of Technology)

Professor Ph.D. I.S.E. (Rutgers University) M.S.I.S.E. (Rutgers University) M.S. Statistics (Rutgers University) B.S.E.E. (Beijing Institute of Technology)

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

Ashlea Bennett Milburn, Ph.D. Associate Professor Ph.D. I.S.E. (Georgia Tech) M.S.I.S.E. (Virginia Tech) B.S.I.E. (University of Arkansas)

Sarah Nurre, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor Ph.D. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) M.Eng. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) B.S. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Edward A. Pohl, Ph.D.

Professor, Department Head Ph.D. (University of Arizona) M.S.R.E. (University of Arizona) M.S.S.E. (Air Force Institute of Technology) M.S.E.M. (University of Dayton) B.S.E.E. (Boston University)

2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

Heather Nachtmann, Ph.D.

Professor Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh) M.S.I.E. (University of Pittsburgh) B.S.I.E. (University of Pittsburgh)

Gregory S. Parnell, Ph.D.

Kim LaScola Needy, Ph.D., PE, CFPIM, PEM

Professor & Dean, Graduate School and International Education Ph.D. (Wichita State University) M.S.I.E. (University of Pittsburgh) B.S.I.E. (University of Pittsburgh)

Harry A. Pierson, Ph.D.

Professor of Practice and Director M.S.O.M. and M.S.E.M. Programs Ph.D. (Stanford University) M.S. (University of Southern California) M.E.I.S.E. (University of Florida) B.S. (University of New York at Buffalo)

Associate Professor Ph.D. (The Ohio State University) M.S.E.M. (University of Missouri, Rolla) B.S.M.E. (University of Missouri, Rolla)

Letitia M. Pohl Ph.D.

Chase Rainwater, Ph.D.

Teaching Associate Professor Ph.D. (University of Arkansas) M.S.S.E. (Air Force Institute of Technology) B.S.M.E. (Tulane University)

Associate Professor Ph.D. (University of Florida) B.S.I.E. (University of Arkansas)

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Ronald L. Rardin, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor Emeritus Ph.D. (Georgia Institute of Technology) M.P.A. (University of Kansas) B.A. (University of Kansas)

Manuel D. Rossetti, Ph.D., PE

University Professor and Director of the Data Science Program Ph.D. (The Ohio State University) M.S.I.S. (The Ohio State University) B.S.I.E. (University of Cincinnati)

John A. White, Ph.D., PE

Distinguished Professor & Chancellor Emeritus Ph.D. (The Ohio State University) M.S.I.E. (Virginia Polytech Institute and State University) B.S.I.E. (University of Arkansas)

Kelly Sullivan, Ph.D.

Associate Professor Ph.D. (University of Florida) M.S.I.E. (University of Arkansas) B.S.I.E. (University of Arkansas)

Shengfan Zhang, Ph.D.

Associate Professor Ph.D. (North Carolina State University) M.I.E. (North Carolina State University) B.M. (Fudan University, Shanghai)

DEPARTMENT FELLOWS The title Fellow is used to describe the highest level of membership in most professional societies. Requirements to achieve the level of Fellow vary among organizations. Fellows are typically nominated by other Fellows, have demonstrated exceptional achievement in their field, and devoted service to the organization. The Industrial Engineering Department proudly recognizes faculty who have achieved this prestigious status.

American Society for Engineering Education Kim Needy John White American Society for Engineering Management Kim Needy Heather Nachtmann Edward A. Pohl Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers Richard Cassady John English Haitao Liao Heather Nachtmann Kim Needy Edward A. Pohl

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Manuel Rossetti John White

Military Operations Research Society Greg Parnell

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Greg Parnell John White

Society for Decision Professionals Greg Parnell

International Council on Systems Engineering Greg Parnell

Society of Reliability Engineers Richard Cassady Edward A. Pohl

Lean Systems Society Greg Parnell Member of the National Academy of Engineering John White INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING | UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS

WAYS TO PARTNER WITH US

T

he Industrial Engineering Department at the University of Arkansas works with a wide network of collaborators. Listed below are some of the ways we are working together with the professional community for mutual benefits. We are always eager to explore new and creative ways to team up with you, our alumni, and industry friends.

INDUSTRY RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

IE’s faculty and students work with corporations, governmental agencies, and other organizations to perform in-context research that provides new knowledge, tools, and insights. Your research funding supports faculty and student time associated with the project, provides valuable experience for students that prepares them to directly contribute to your organization, and leverages the expertise and resources associated with a major research institution. Our focus is on ensuring that your research funding results in a measurable return on investment to your organization. For more information, contact Dr. Ed Pohl: epohl@uark.edu

PROJECT OPPORTUNITIES

The Capstone Experience Course, provides unique opportunities for companies to partner with students to solve real-world issues companies face. The student teams work closely with the company to identify projects of interest, then work together to identify objectives and ways to achieve desired outcomes. To partner with us, please contact Dr. Ed Pohl at epohl@uark.edu

MOCK INTERVIEWS

Through the Mock Interview program, sponsored by the Arkansas Academy of Industrial Engineering (AAIE), students are able to interview with actual employers to hone their interviewing skills. Interviewers come from companies that regularly recruit industrial engineers as well as AAIE members. The goal is to help prepare students so they are ready to present themselves in the best possible way at career fairs and job interviews. Contact: aaie@uark.edu

MENTORING CIRCLES

Through the Mentoring Program, IE students are provided with networking opportunities and access to industry professionals with whom they can discuss career opportunities, job expectations, and skills and strategies for professional success. Industry mentors are provided the opportunity to share their passion for their profession and help develop the next generation of leaders, while building their own coaching, communication, and leadership skills. Contact: aaie@uark.edu

COOPERATIVE EDUCATION AND INTERNSHIPS

Through cooperative education and internships, employers receive the benefit of working with some of the top students in our program. The students gain hands-on experience in the workforce and are able to use their newly acquired skills. Employers also find potential new employees by developing their relationship with the students. Contact: Dr. Jessica Park at jepark@uark.edu

GUEST SPEAKERS

The Industrial Engineering Faculty cannot be available for every single class during a semester. They, like all of us, have conferences to attend as well as family matters that take precedence over work at times. There are also times during a school year that bringing in a guest lecturer can add some variety in substance to a course as well as provide real world experiences that the faculty member may or may not be able to provide. For more information, contact Dr. Ed Pohl: epohl@uark.edu 2019-2020 STATE OF THE DEPARTMENT REPORT

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UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING BELL ENGINEERING CENTER, STE. 4207 DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS 72701

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industrial-engineering@uark.edu

WAYS TO GIVE BACK TO INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

W

ould you like to help the Department continue to provide world-class industrial engineering education and relevant, cutting-edge research? Below are some options to do just that!

Annual Giving: Annual gifts to IE are generally unrestricted to help meet the greatest current needs of the department.

Endowments: Endowments are created to provide support into perpetuity. Examples of endowments in IE are scholarships, fellowships, and faculty chairs.

Planned Giving: Planned gifts can be as simple as a bequest (included in your estate plans). Other options include trust vehicles and annuities, which have potential to provide an income stream and significant tax benefits.

Are you ready to help today?

Go to onlinegiving.uark.edu and enter account number: 30003454

Thank you!

For questions concerning giving, please contact: DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT • 479-575-3075